


Dreams of our tomorrow

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [22]
Category: Haikyuu!!, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Culturally-accurate Mahoutokoro, Gen, Japanese Culture, Japanese Mythology & Folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: It’s Finals crunch time everywhere in Japan, and no different at Mahoutokoro. Though, perhaps making a mistake was perhaps slightly less likely to tear a hole in the fabric of reality at other schools.“Hinata, how in the worlds did you manage to misspell shikigami as shinigami?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideallyqualia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/gifts).



> I... may or may not have... ~70 pages of worldbuilding and the outline for _Mahoutokoro, A History_ written. *cough*
> 
> I know it’s slightly unrealistic for a fifteen-year-old to mix up the hiragana for _ki_ and _ni_ , but this is the guy who, in canon, had never gotten a double digit on any of his quizzes before.
> 
> The only thing I can think of that you need to know is that students start at Mahoutokoro at age 15, and graduate at 18 (for generalists) or 21 (for specialists). To Muggles, it's just another one of those elite powerhouse high school/university combos that draft students from across the country. Before that, magical children go to the same schools as Muggle children, and take after-school classes at any shrine near their house. This allows children without sufficient magical ability to continue pursuing non-magical education and jobs, but don't leave them completely unprepared to handle the supernatural things they may encounter (e.g. accidentally offending a spirit).

As much as the boys were probably hoping otherwise – well, some of them anyway, Hitoka was quite sure Tsukishima was perfectly happy with the current state of events – winning Nationals did not exempt them from their end-of-year exams.

Saturday morning saw most of the regulars crammed into the club room, books and notes scattered across the floor. Even Tsukishima had deigned to turn up, saying that he needed a good laugh at Hinata and Kageyama’s no doubt hilarious mistakes, but the way he’d been clutching Hitoka’s Ritual Scripture notes for the past hour suggested he _might_ have had ulterior motives.

Not – not that wanting to study was a _bad_ thing, or anything!

The door slid open with a violent bang, making her jump and squeak in shock.

“SNACKS!” announced Tanaka-senpai from the doorway, his arms full of junk food. Hitoka didn’t even want to know where he got them from. Maybe his scary older sister smuggled them in for him during her last visit? At least that explained why he had to kick the door open.

Hinata cheered at the prospect of a break, leaping up from where he’d been painstakingly trying to copy the ritual circles they were supposed to know for the final exam.

“Oy, watch it!” snapped Kageyama, barely rescuing his own notes in time.

“Sorry, Kageyama,” mumbled Hinata. Hitoka winced at the spray of crumbs and fervently hoped he’d put down her notebook first.

“Oh, is everyone here?”

Tanaka-senpai glanced behind him at the sound of Sawamura-senpai’s voice. “Yup!” he announced, and then frowned at the club room. “Don’t think we can all fit like that, though.”

Sawamura-senpai stuck his head past Tanaka-senpai’s shoulder, and then nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, everyone out!” He added a glare for good measure when Hinata looked about to protest, and that sent all of them scrambling out of the room in record time, trailing paper everywhere.

“Kiyoko, if you’d please?”

Hitoka tried her best not to make any embarrassing noises when Shimizu-senpai came into view. Finals cram week didn’t seem to be taking as much of a toll on Shimizu-senpai _at all_ , and the bedraggled and harried-looking crowd of boys only served to accentuate her beauty, somehow.

Then again, she’d heard that Shimizu-senpai was looking to go into the Academia track as a second speciality after her third year, so maybe the exams were just too easy for her? Only the really talented get to go into Academia, like spellcrafters, or that crazy group looking to shorten the amount of time it took to channel a successful summons. Everybody knew not to go near the East wing in the afternoons by now, lest they got eaten, or accidentally sent into an alternate dimension, or _something_.

Was this a regular occurrence at other schools of magic too?

Shimizu-senpai moved into the cleared room, setting up pre-inscribed sticks at the four corners and the entryway. She then stepped out of the room, clapped her hands, and the room bulged oddly as though being rapidly expanded by an invisible force, before settling.

"Nicely done," complimented Sawamura-senpai, over the sounds of Tanaka-senpai and Nishinoya-senpai squealing in the background.

Shimizu-senpai flicked him an amused look, side-stepping a flailing Nishinoya with the ease that could only have come from years of practice. Or maybe she used to be a gymnast. Hitoka still hadn't figured out what her former sport in middle school was. "You could have done the same, Daichi."

"Yeah, but my spellcasting's not as precise as yours; my pocket dimensions always come out looking a bit weird." Sawamura-senpai scratched his head, looking a tad embarrassed. "That's why you're the ward specialist and I'm just a miko."

" _Just_ a miko," repeated Suga-senpai, moving past them into the newly-expanded room. "Daichi, wasn't that a letter from Ise I saw on your desk?"

Sawamura-senpai spluttered, turning an alarming shade of red. "Why – how – _Suga_ , what were you doing in my room?"

"Dropping off the book on combat ofuda you wanted? You keyed us into your wards last year, remember?" Suga-senpai didn't look the slightest bit apologetic as he ducked past Sawamura-senpai's swipe. "Besides, if you really want to hide something, stick it under your futon, not lying in plain sight on your desk!"

"Ise? Like, the _Ise Grand Shrine_?" Immediately after saying that, Hitoka squeaked and covered her mouth. Why – why did her brain-to-mouth filter fail at the worst possible moment? Now everyone was staring at her!

"Well?" Suga-senpai demanded, grinning.

Sawamura-senpai heaved a long-suffering sigh, but he didn't glare at Hitoka or anything, so that must be good, right? "Yes," he said dryly, " _that_ Ise."

"As if there are any other Ises," muttered Tsukishima, but he was pushing up his glasses and looking very interested.

"So you're our batch's miko representative to Ise Grand this year?" Shimizu-senpai smiled. "Congratulations, Daichi."

Sawamura-senpai sighed again, and nodded. "They said they wanted someone who's good at defensive barriers, with the Twenty-year Rebuilding coming up." He paused, as though waiting for something.

"So you're saying they wanted a _defensive specialist_?" Tanaka broke in, far too gleefully, if the way Sawamura-senpai pinched the bridge of his nose was any indication. 

"Well, then, Daichi-san's the perfect man for the job!" finished Nishinoya, and the two of them exchanged a hi-five amidst general scattering of laughter.

Hitoka could see Sawamura-senpai struggling to hold back his grin at their antics, but he hadn’t been the captain of this ragtag group for so long without having learnt a few tricks. “Weren’t you all supposed to be _studying_?” he asked.

Like a switch being flipped at the mention of exams, everyone settled back down. Hitoka gingerly poked at the tatami mats with a finger, curious. Did the pocket dimension stretch all the mats, or did it somehow multiply them to fit? They’d covered part of the theory in first year, of course, which was why Shimizu-senpai needed all of them to leave the room first, but there wasn’t any explanation on _why_ it worked.

“So, uh, what’s the thing with the Ise Grand Shrine?”

Hinata had probably meant it to be a whisper, but the relative silence in the room meant that _everyone_ heard him.

“Hinata,” began Tsukishima, apparently too disbelieving to be sarcastic, “even someone as dumb as _you_ cannot possibly not know what the Ise Grand Shrine is.”

Hinata flushed. “O-of course I know!” he protested, which didn’t help to make it sound any more believable. “It’s the temple of Amaterasu, right? B-but Shimizu-senpai said something about, _our batch’s representative_?”

Tsukishima scoffed. “Were you listening at all during orientation?”

Before Tsukishima and Hinata – and invariably, Kageyama – could get into their usual snipe-fest, Sawamura-senpai sighed and waved a hand for silence. “All of you know about the deity triumvirate, right?” he asked, and waited for nods of acknowledgement across the room. “Amaterasu for the royal family, Tsukuyomi for education, and Susano’o for the administration. In past eras, Susano’o used to be a military general, but ever since Meiji the position’s more likely to be held by one of the Ministers instead.”

“The current Tsukuyomi is always the Head of Mahoutokoro, right?”

Shimizu-senpai nodded at Yamaguchi’s question. “Yes, all of you should have heard her in your dreams, when you first started showing signs of magic?”

It might have been nearly a decade ago, but Hitoka wasn’t likely to forget it. By the look on everyone else’s faces, neither were they.

“The Tsukuyomi is traditionally passed to the strongest dreamwalker in each generation, who’s capable of tapping into the natural leylines to identify each magical child as they come into possession of their powers, and to direct them to seek teachings at the nearest shrine. Most people would never have enough magic for any kind of massive undertaking – but to be able to _see_ the Spirit World meant to be open to dangers _from_ the Spirit World. All of you, the fact that you’ve been invited to attend Mahoutokoro means you have the raw potential to pursue a magic-based career, and your first two years is to help you figure out _what_ that career is.” She exchanged a tiny smile with the other third years. “Which is why, you have to pass your all exams, even if you don’t like the subject.”

Hinata made a noise like a dying sheep and turned back to his drawing. “Yachi-san, like that?” he asked, putting the finishing touches on his reproduction.

Upside-down, it did look like the basic summoning circle for a minor shikigami, and Hitoka was about to congratulate him on a job well-done when half of the seniors stiffened and Suga-senpai yelled, “Hinata, stop!”

In the next moment there was something akin to a controlled stampede; someone shoved Hitoka against the wall, Tanaka-senpai was suddenly holding a handful of ofuda instead of snacks, and every senior student was on their feet in a wary stance.

“What?” demanded Hinata from somewhere – Hitoka couldn’t see him anymore with the crush of bodies between them. “What happened?”

Nobody answered for a long moment. Shimizu-senpai, her hands glowing, was crouched partially in front of Hitoka. Her hair had fallen to partially obscure her eyes, but Hitoka thought they might be glowing a little, too.

“Clear,” Suga-senpai suddenly announced, and everyone heaved a long sigh of relief.

Hitoka edged forwards gingerly, and the fact that Shimizu-senpai didn’t stop her meant that whatever danger there’d been had passed, right? Hinata’s circle came into view, the innocuous piece of paper lying in the middle of some kind of pulsing barrier, and she turned her head so that she could read it the right way up.

The four corner winds, prayer for a guiding light in the darkness…

“Hinata!” she squeaked, too horrified to be as polite as she normally would. “You were supposed to call upon a _shi **ki** gami_, not a _shi **ni** gami_!” And the phrasing, too! The original summoning circle called upon a minor shikigami to bestow a ball of light for a few hours, which was inscribed as _soul’s light_ in the ritual circle. When changed to _shinigami_ , however…

Over the clamour of the others who hadn’t seen his faux pas, she could hear Suga-senpai’s voice. “And it’s a good thing you didn’t close the activation circle, or I’m not sure what we could have done.” He waved Sawamura-senpai’s concerns off. “Yeah, he did catch _something’s_ attention, but it left once it figured we weren’t going to finish the summons. Better burn the paper before you drop the barrier, though, just in case.”

Oh, right, Suga-senpai was an aspiring _Guide_ , wasn’t he? Someone who was born with the natural ability to commune with spirits?

Shimizu-senpai chanted something, and the paper caught on fire. When it burnt down to ashes, Hitoka didn’t think she was the only one to heave another sigh of relief.

“Seriously?” asked Tsukishima, his voice a tad shaky. “How did you mix up the hiragana for _ki_ and _ni_?”

Hinata fidgeted.

Kageyama scooted further away from him. Just in case. Hitoka resisted the urge to do the same.

“Okay, new rule for this study session, someone keeps an eye on Hinata at all times – Kiyoko, can I leave it up to you?” Sawamura-senpai cast a doubtful eye over their whole group. “Tanaka, Noya, can I trust the two of you not to summon any deities you were _not supposed to_ by accident?”

“Uh,” Noya-senpai coughed, looking just a little bit sheepish. “We’re… well… we need to know how to channel the elements using ofuda? And Asahi accidentally burnt down our classroom last month?”

Sawamura-senpai stared skyward as though praying for patience.

**Author's Note:**

> The author would like to qualify that Ise Grand is **A** temple dedicated to Amaterasu (well, actually, more like a group of shrines if you want to get technical), and not the only one like Hinata seems to think it is.


End file.
